Ghozteprourkah of Azophin

Ghozteprourkah ⰀⰠⰈⰕⰠⰒⰓⰑⰖⰓⰍⰡ Hěztěprourka
Imperial Voice of Azophin
Reign	18 Dominy 1967 - 12 Nollonger 1971
Election	18 Dominy 1967
Predecessor	position created
Successor	Yarmoush
Born	13 Empery 1905 Bes Gjegjeg, Livotsky Strana, Azophin
Died	7 Nollonger 1992 Inetsograd, Central Province, Azophin

His Enlightened Lordship Ghozteprourkah of Azophin (Rashimic: ⰀⰠⰈⰕⰠⰒⰓⰑⰖⰓⰍⰡ Hěztěprourka, /(ħ)əztəprourkə/, meaning 'love of the Prophet'), born Ghozteprourkah Pishpilty, was the first Imperial Voice of Azophin, in office from 18 Dominy 1965 until his removal in the Tribunal Coup of 7 Nollonger 1971. Ghozteprourkah oversaw and was one of the major architects of the Azophine Reconstruction and its resurgence after the Long War.

The exact details of Ghozteprourkah's early life and career are largely unknown to Messenian scholars and most attempts to reconstruct them rely heavily on hagiographic popular material published during and since his time at the head of the Azophine Banner-State. According to these accounts, he was born the son of a miner in Bes Gjegjeg, Livotsky Strana, on 13 Empery 1905, showed signs of remarkable talent at a young age and eventually - having almost qualified as a Scholar - joined the Azophine colonial army in Nollonger 1948 during the general ramping up of tensions that concluded in the 1949 Tormetian Campaign and the outbreak of full-scale war with Terophan. He then participated in various significant actions with distinction (in fact many biographies place him, somewhat improbably, at almost every one of Azophin's limited list of colonial encounters during this period) before receiving command of one of the five Columns deployed to the Fifth Strategic Zone in Inner Joriscia in 1954 (Arhushouv shel Arakien's Northern Columns). While this posting is generally given a prestigious cast in modern Azophine accounts, contemporary evidence suggests that the redeployment of colonial troops to the metropole was intended largely to free up the battle-hardened units of the Fourth and Fifth Battle Groups at a time when the Steppe War had largely come to an end; the Northern Columns do not seem to have been involved in serious fighting until 1956, when they were redeployed to northern Anabbah during the Khabbat Offensive. In early 1958, following the failure of Action 523, Shel Arakien was relieved of command and placed under arrest along with several of his adjuncts. It is only at this point, around Ghozteprourkah's promotion promoted to full command of the Northern Columns, that he begins to appear on the records readily available to occidentals.

Ghozteprourkah's forces remained concentrated in northeastern Anabbah during the final, devastating year of Azophin's war effort, and thus avoided direct involvement in the Sea of Flames. Following the de facto Azophine capitulation and the the Silver Mountain Decree of Ediface 1958, they were officially dissolved under the General Disarmament Decree and ordered to return home by Terophan's Azophin Occupation Administration. Most of the men, despite still being armed, made their way back across the border – and Ghozteprourkah himself escaped detention by a Terophatic delegation sent to take senior officers into custody. After reportedly considering continued resistance around the Anabbine border, in early 1959 he and his adjuncts were smuggled into the Azophine Uplands, an area with limited Terophatic presence, where they joined the Army of Rejection. His whereabouts from the abrupt collapse of the AOA in late 1960 through to the proclamation of the Debates State in early 1961 are unclear; although Azophine sources often name him as a commander in the First Argah War, he actually seems to have spent the period in Inetsograd. In any case, he was part of the Rejectionist garrison sent to oust the Ghost Government from Great Pestul. For the most part he remained a relative unknown outside the secretive circles of the Army of Rejection until 1963, when he was one of the Corrective Triumvirate who put their names to the proclamation purging the Debates of moderate and monarchist figures (the Inrud Incident) alongside Yarmoush ShelYaran and Yorsephor Sarmoukhya. This break with general political etiquette marked a clear intention to take a more political role in future.

Initially the Correctionists' main concern was to prevent a rapprochement with the institutions of the Terophatic Ascendancy established after the war and what they believed was a plot by Yaromir Roshispil to acquiesce in the incomplete separation of the colonies from the Azophine metropole in exchange for reintegration. The vast economic repercussions of the continuation of climatic disturbances through 1964 and 1965, however – as well as the failure of the economy to stabilise on other fronts – drove them towards increasingly radical economic and political measures. Popular discontent was turned against the wealthy Duodecimvirs and their Adjoinments in the 'War on Petty Kings', with a new economic model drawing heavily on idealised versions of pre-war Terophatic Estatism brought to life through extensive state-led restructuring of industry and commerce, ushering in the final victory of the New Estate (and widespread state cronyism) in Azophin. At the same time as Pishpilty's government was establishing new trading relationships with Messenian powers, a complex set of split exchange rates, price controls and state enterprises was used to transform Azophin's informal holdings in Inner Joriscia into the engine of reconstruction in the shattered metropole (the so-called Head of the Snake Policy). These policies were accompanied by symbolic warfare on the cultural edifice of pre-war Azophin, including vernacularisation and other policies already well in train in Auvo Sirviọ's Agamar (and enjoying some continuity with the moves of the early Debates State). Although Pishpilty held no official position during this period higher than membership of the Imperial Security Board, he became the face of the Correctionist regime during this period, largely – at least from the outside – with the consent of his two co-conspirators.

The first 'year with a summer' since the Sea of Flames (1966) and the relaxation of Terophatic controls on contact with the colonies in 1967 – a moment immortalised in Azophine memory by the arrival of the Propitious Beginning, the first passenger ship in almost a decade, carrying among others Pishpilty's mother – allowed him to cement this position by having himself appointed Sole Voice and Mediant of the Debates later that year. Although ostensibly a mere spokesman, this role made him the de facto head of state, and from 1968 onwards he increasingly excluded his fellow veterans and the Debates more broadly from policymaking in favour of a new guard of young technocrats, the so-called Petty Savants (organised from 1969 into a Harmonisation of Forces Board independent of the Debates themselves). Many outside observers believed that, like Agamar's Sirvio, he was on a trajectory to make himself Emperor. In 1971, however, he was abruptly arrested and deposed as Imperial Voice by a special meeting of the Debates, which levelled a long list of charges against him reflecting the grievances of several political factions, some of them mutually incompatible: forcing Azophin to 'wear' the Ring of Silver and 'strengthening the enemies of Vaestdom' while drawing close to Terophan, for example. Although the secretive workings of Azophine politics make it difficult to establish exactly was behind this sudden change in his political fortunes, it seems obvious that he had worn out the patience both of the Rejectionist camp and of more conservative army figures such as Yishu benHeshim Sheltiye. The subsequent revelation of Ludwig Reuss's defection a month prior to his removal has led some orientalists to argue that this was the proximate cause. Certainly anxieties about the increasingly public relationship with Zeppengeran played a role. Ironically, the ultimate victors of the struggle for power (the so-called Third War of Manoeuvre) quickly resumed negotiations with Terophan and were able to achieve the total reintegration of Azophin into the Ascendancy order at the Splendid Peace of 1973.

After his deposition Pishpilty disappeared entirely from public life and Azophine politicians rarely mentioned him (inviting comparisons with the earlier Vesnite practice of Oblition), and for many years it was assumed that he had been killed. In 1991, however – two years after the death of Siluve and amid growing tensions with Terophan – an elderly but still recognisable Pishpilty appeared at a military parade alongside other veterans of the Army of Rejection. Although he died less than a year later, Azophine historiography has since largely rehabilitated him as a hero of the postwar period.